


Needing

by sheafrotherdon



Series: Exhaustion [3]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Movie: The Old Guard (2020)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:22:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26596744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheafrotherdon/pseuds/sheafrotherdon
Summary: “Fuck me.  Help me feel something other than this . . .”  Nicky gestures to his chest, fingers curled like claws.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: Exhaustion [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1912660
Comments: 35
Kudos: 418





	Needing

They meet Booker at the pub, none of them eager for the awkward companionship of another car ride with him jammed between them. Where Joe couldn’t look at Booker the day before, now he can’t stop looking at him, searching for some clue as to why, out of all the choices in the world, selling them out would seem sound, wise, even good. He stares out the window of the pub, watching Booker and Nile talk, and though he grasps that his understanding of Booker’s loneliness was incomplete, he still can’t make all the pieces of the past two days fit. 

When he isn’t looking at Booker, he’s watching Nicky. This is Nicky’s kindness – to be calm and deliberate as he stows his own feelings to let others process theirs. Joe’s seen him do this a thousand times—defer this space to others—as though Nicky can observe from a great distance, evaluate the terrain, focus on nothing but what’s necessary, line up the shot and catch the bullet’s casing as it falls. But Joe’s been there every one of those thousand times and knows what it costs Nicky to bury his feelings, and as Nicky makes space for Andy to turn Booker’s actions over her in her mind, for Nile to speak freely, for Joe to be as much of a grump as he wants, he won’t take anything for himself.

They settle on a hundred years, and Andy volunteers to tell Booker. They follow her, wait at a discrete distance while she delivers the news, and Joe hates every minute of it. He knows it’s her goodbye. 

*****

Nicky seems to find solace in front of Copley’s noticeboards, covered in photographs and illustrations of some small fraction of what they’ve done with their lives. He’s always been the one to insist that everything happens for a reason, and Joe has to admit that Copley’s jigsaw-puzzle timeline seems to bear him out. Joe feels something else—something that flares like the ache of a healing bone—to trace the past two-hundred years in newspaper clippings and copies of their passports, to see Booker so intimately tied to them in everything they’ve done. 

But Joe can’t deny they have purpose, as Andy says. Were it his to conjure, he would give almost anything to create the renewed energy that Andy seems to draw from seeing their journeys spun out with thread and thumb tacks, and he’s glad to see the glint in her eyes that’s been missing for too long. Nicky looks over at him and he answers his smile with one of his own. He loves him; loves these people, loves Andy, loves NIle – Nile, who’s brand new and yet walks with such determination and gives him shit for being old. He tucks her arm in his as they walk out of Copley’s place, and she shoots him a smile that makes him think there’s hope for all of them yet.

“I’ll drive,” she says, and Joe whistles, eyebrows rising at her confidence. “You think I can’t?” she asks him.

“Oh no,” he says, laughing softly. “I think you can. And I think you’re risking a beat down from Andy for trying, but be my guest.”

Andy lets Nile drive on the condition that she gets to rides shotgun, which is some weird show of respect that Joe leaves alone. He reaches across the back seat instead and holds Nicky’s hand, his heart slowing until it matches the rhythm of Nicky’s thumb stroking his. He periodically steals glances in Nicky’s direction, and every time Nicky is staring out of the window, tugging at his bottom lip with the fingers of his free hand.

*****

Nicky insists they stop to buy food on the way to the safe house. One they make it there he shrugs out of his jacket and begins the slow work of crafting a meal for them all, sipping from a glass of wine that Joe pours. As he works—sorting through the vegetables for exactly the onion he wants, for just the right pepper—he draws Nile out with gentle questions, and Joe watches her slowly relax, unwinding little by little under the effect of the wine and Nicky’s attention. Joe shares a look with Andy; she knows Nicky too, and she offers Joe a half-smile of understanding, a small shake of her head. He takes her point, tries to stop worrying, steadies himself by taking care of her wound instead and joins in the conversation, teasing Nile, teasing Nicky, drawing them into shared laughter and opening another bottle of wine.

By the time they drift to bed—food savored, dishes cleaned, kitchen restored to order—Nicky’s strangely quiet. Joe shuts the bedroom door behind them, watches as Nicky crosses to the window and stares outside into the darkness.

“You okay?” he asks, knowing the answer before he hears it.

Nicky sighs and turns around, scrubbing his hands over his face. “No. I need you to . . . can you . . . Just fuck me,” he says.

Joe feels his eyebrows rise. “You want me to –”

“Fuck me. Help me feel something other than this . . .” He gestures to his chest, fingers curled like claws. 

“Nicolo.” Joe crosses to him, cups his face between both his hands. He kisses his forehead, his cheek. “Talk to me.”

“Don’t ask me to,” Nicky whispers, closing his eyes, wrapping his hands around Joe’s wrists. “Just help me stop thinking.”

Joe kisses him softly, refusing to hurry—softly nudges his lips to Nicky’s. “You know how I love your body,” he murmurs. 

Nicky offers a flicker of a smile.

“But I don’t think a rough fuck is going to help.”

“Joe –”

“Habibi,” Joe says, and kisses him again, soft and deft and patient. He feels Nicky shudder, a full-body surrender. “Let me take my time.”

Nicky nods, letting his hands drop, and Joe kisses him again, feels Nicky lean into it. Joe loves him and knows something of his heartache; decides then and there that if Nicky needs affection, needs not to think, that Joe will craft that kindness from the sweep of his hands and the press of his mouth, give back to Nicky what Nicky has given away so freely. Joe deepens the kiss, feels Nicky sigh as their tongues touch and slide, their lips slick and sensitive. He keeps kissing him as he undresses them both, pausing only to pull Nicky’s shirt over his head, then his own. He spreads Nicky out across the sheets, tugging off his boots, his socks, his jeans, his underwear, peppering every inch of skin with kiss after kiss as he gently works them both naked. And when he climbs into bed too, when he lowers himself to lie on Nicky, when Nicky’s thighs fall open to make space for him, Joe shifts his attention back to Nicky’s beautiful mouth, to all the gentleness he can give him after two days of the world cutting him to pieces.

Nicky seems—now, at least—content to go slow, and Joe touches him with reverence in every place he knows will bring him pleasure. He presses kisses to the underside of Nicky’s upper arms, tongues at his nipples until Nicky’s twisting and restless, scrapes his teeth beneath Nicky’s ribs. He sucks two of Nicky’s fingers into his mouth, teasing the sensitive skin with his tongue, delighting in Nicky arching beneath him, and then kisses Nicky’s palm, the rapid beat of his pulse at his wrist, and shifts to kiss his hip and the crease of his groin before he takes him into his mouth.

Nicky groans and bucks just a little, lets one hand drift to rest on top of Joe’s head. Joe hums appreciatively, and sets to slowly, slowly working Nicky with his mouth, losing himself in the weight of Nicky on his tongue, the salt-bitter taste of him at the back of his throat, the electric pleasure of hearing Nicky gasp and moan, tangling his fingers in Joe’s hair. He brings him close then backs off again, ignoring Nicky’s whines of frustration in favor of kissing and nipping at the inside of his thighs.

“Please, Joe. _Please_ ,” Nicky asks, voice breaking, fisting his hands in the sheets. Joe hushes him softly, kissing his hip, his stomach, nosing into his pubic hair before he takes him back in his mouth. Nicky shivers hard, panting helplessly as Joe tongues the head of his cock, and then his hands are back in Joe’s hair, his grip tightening, and Joe takes as much of him into his mouth as he can before Nicky bucks and comes, emptying himself with a shout and a broken moan. Joe gentles him through it, lets him go when Nicky shivers with sensitivity, drags himself up Nicky’s body, covering him with kisses as he moves.

“Good?” he asks. Nicky’s eyes are closed, his breathing rapid, and his chest is flushed with heat. 

“Good,” he manages, sounding wrecked, and he pulls Joe closer, kisses him with a fervor that makes Joe’s guts twist with want.

“Nicky . . .” Joe works a hand between them to pull on his own dick. But Nicky shoves him clumsily onto his back, covers his hand with one of his own.

“No,” Nicky says, shaking his head, still breathing hard. “Let me.”

Joe swallows and nods, cupping the back of Nicky’s neck, pulling him in to kiss him again as Nicky wraps a hand around him, works him in all the ways that he knows Joe loves. Joe presses up into the delicious pressure of his touch, close, so close, and when he comes his orgasm punches out of him. He spills all over Nicky’s hand and his own stomach, Nicky catching every sound he makes with kiss after kiss.

When Joe drifts back to himself, Nicky’s half lying on top of him, chin propped on Joe’s chest. He’s looking at him with such fondness that Joe feels his heart hurt. 

“God, I love you,” Nicky murmurs.

Joe reaches for him, cups Nicky’s face. “Beloved,” he murmurs as Nicky moves back up his body to kiss him, as they kiss one another, their skin cooling, their legs tangled, bodies spent. They clean up as best they can with Joe’s t-shirt, then burrow beneath the blankets on the bed, Joe tucking Nicky close against his side and nosing into his hair as Nicky rubs his cheek against Joe’s shoulder.

“Are you still thinking?” Joe asks softly.

“Perhaps,” Nicky says around a yawn. “But only of you.” He sounds light-hearted, and Joe laughs softly, delighted that he can dull the blade the world might wield, delighted to have Nicky safe in his arms.

“I love you,” he says.

“More today than yesterday,” Nicky mumbles.

And Joe catches Nicky’s hand, pulls it up to rest over his heart.


End file.
